Page 60 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

I rarely ever feel like dressing up. And they never make me feel out of place in my casual T-shirts and jeans.

Tom scoffs. “You think we’re working on new songs? Dude, I can’t even get Alfie to learn the ones we have. Breaking in this new drummer is going to be the death of me.”

“Death invoked already.” Eliot grins. “I predict this will be a very dramatic Wednesday Night Dinner.” His mischievous gaze lands on me, his brows rising playfully.

I’m not soaking in his mirth. He might as well be telling me, prepare yourself, baby brother. Tonight is about you.

Fuck me.

I wish I could fake a stomach bug. Go hurl in the bathroom. That’d just do the inverse of what I want. It’ll ramp up their paranoia about what’s wrong with Ben?

So yeah, I need to power through this meal.

Beckett eyes Eliot. “Are you planning to set the tablecloth on fire again?”

“Please don’t,” Audrey pleads beside me. “It took me oh so terribly long to get the smoke out of my last dress. Velvet absorbs .” Her baby blue dress cascades on either side of her chair. Frilly sleeves threaten to lick the flamed candles when she reaches for her water goblet.

I spring out of my chair and draw her away from the lit candle. Fuck, fuck. My heart has ascended to my throat. She’s not on fire. She’s not on fire.

“Sois prudente, petite s?ur,” Beckett tells her. Be careful, little sister.

She flips her hair off her shoulder. “Je le suis toujours.” I always am.

“Starting the night off with delusions, I see,” Charlie quips.

Audrey scoffs. “I am far more careful than Tom and Eliot. That is not a delusion . It is a fact.” She twists to me. “Isn’t that right, Ben?”

“Yeah,” I nod strongly. Hating the attention right now.

I want to smile, but her sleeve nearly catching fire really has me worked up. I can feel Beckett observing me in concern. Calm down. I need to calm the fuck down.

Back in her chair, Audrey sips her water and smooths the creases out of her blue dress.

The style is apparently from the French Rococo era, she said, fitting perfectly with the likes of The Phantom of the Opera.

She always plays into the dramatics of the night, even her voice carries an extra whimsical cadence.

I realize she’s stopped wearing funeral blacks. No longer mourning my move to New York. I think she’s more set on the idea of joining me there now.

Eliot blows another puff of smoke in the air. “I cannot promise a fireless evening, dear sister.”

Audrey lets out an annoyed breath. “Then I shall waft the smoke your way.”

“I vote in favor of no smoke while Maeve is in attendance,” Jane says, tucking her baby into a highchair. Thatcher, her husband and the only non-Cobalt to ever grace a Wednesday Night Dinner, slips baby noise-cancelling headphones over Maeve’s little ears.

“I vote no infants at these dinners,” Charlie chimes in.

“You were already outvoted when she was born,” Jane reminds him casually.

It’s Audrey who pins a glare on him and says, “Sit in your defeat.”

“Yes, Charlie Keating, sit in your defeat,” Tom eggs on while he pours himself a deep red Merlot from an antique decanter.

He tosses the scepter to Eliot, who catches it from across the table.

And yeah, it was less than an inch from hitting the 1800s chandelier.

Above us, crystal daggers and pendants hang from the twisted gilt-bronze branches.

The crystal chandelier is a work of art, much like the oil paintings on the dark walls.

Charlie rolls his eyes. The warm glow from candlesticks casts a rich sheen over his emerald-green suit, the jacket unbuttoned with no shirt underneath. I check my watch. Really would love for Mom and Dad to show up any minute now.

I force my knees not to bounce.

“Somewhere you need to be, dear brother?” Eliot asks, capturing my gaze.

It’s strange how normal he looks wielding a scepter, smoking a pipe, and wearing an eight-grand designer tux. Every night this month he’s worn something different, and yet, I’d never call them costumes.

Costumes imply he’s putting on an act. With Eliot, the clothes are like another layer of skin.

“Just trying to figure out when Mom and Dad are coming,” I say into a deeper breath. “The food is getting cold.”

“Shall we invoke his name?” Tom asks with another wry grin.

“Not this,” Charlie puts a finger to his temple like he’s already getting a migraine.

“Invoke whose name?” Thatcher asks, sitting beside Jane with a hand on her back.

He never comes to dinner in anything theatrical.

Just a flannel and pants tonight. It’s not unusual for him to be asking questions.

There’s so many traditions and lore between the seven of us that it’ll probably take a good decade to loop him in completely.

“Tom and Eliot have a ridiculous theory,” Charlie says.

“It’s only ridiculous to nonbelievers,” Eliot counters. “But no one has ever seen it not succeed.”

“That’s because you only do it when you know it will succeed.”

Eliot gasps. “Tom, is he saying we’re rigging it?”

Tom shakes his head in disappointment. “I think he is.”

“Pass the potatoes, Pip.” Beckett up-nods to me, and I hand over the bowl, careful not to knock a candle. We’re both usually the quietest during these dinners. I’m more of an observer and a “talk when spoken to” participant.

Audrey takes a dainty sip of water. “They believe that if you say Father’s name three times, he appears.”

Thatcher’s brows furrow. “Like Beetlejuice?”

“Nothing like Beetlejuice,” Eliot and Tom say in unison while Charlie says at the same time, “Exactly like Beetlejuice.”

Beckett cracks a smile. I almost laugh. Really, I can’t picture even a month without these Wednesday nights. They’re a staple, a fixture, a constant, like the oak tree that can endure fire and lightning and still never burn down.

“We’ll prove it,” Tom says and nods to Eliot. Together they chant, “Richard Connor Cobalt.” They drum the table with their fingers. “Richard Connor Cobalt.” Their drumming picks up speed. “Richard Connor?—”

Dad enters the room, and you can’t make this shit up. Eliot and Tom jump out of their seats, hooting and hollering about magic .

Audrey spits out her water in surprise.

Jane laughs, especially at Thatcher’s wide-eyed expression. Beckett’s shaking his head into a brighter smile, and Charlie has risen to fill his goblet to the brim with wine.

I think I’m the only one void of a big reaction. Mostly because I’m just taking it all in. Putting it all to memory with a reverent fondness.

Mom’s black heels clap against the hardwood as she struts in behind Dad. “What did we miss?” Her frown overtakes her face.

“Magic.” Eliot decrees. “We called upon our dear father and look who appeared.” He waves a hand to our dad. “A true mystical marvel.”

He’s playing up the whole “magic” bit to get a rise out of our dad.

We’ve known since we were kids how much he truly hates all things fairytale.

He’s a man of logic, and things like the Easter bunny, mermaids, and unicorns all fall into his “bullshit” category.

Apparently letting us believe in Santa Claus was even a point of contention with him and our mom.

“You called and I came,” Dad says. “The only magic in that is the magic of communication.”

“So you do believe in magic?” Tom says into a smirk.

“No,” Dad says pointedly. He calmly rounds the table. Choosing the head closest to me. Which sucks.

I was really hoping he’d be at the other end tonight.

Eliot and Tom glance at each other conspiratorially as they sink down in their respective chairs. No one is left standing except our parents.

“Opening remarks have commenced,” Dad says before taking a seat in unison with Mom. I seem to release and cage a breath all at the same time. I’m excited. Nervous. Glad this is starting and ready to get it over with.

It’s no surprise when Eliot stands. Anyone can start speaking, but he’s usually the one to do it first. Like we’re all on autopilot, even Thatcher, goblets are quickly scooped in hands, and we all brace the table.

Eliot climbs onto the chair, then plants a foot on the table’s edge in a dramatic stomp that shakes the dishware and rattles the candlesticks.

With a flick of his fingers, he spins the chandelier above his head.

A couple flames sputter out. He pops the pipe out of his mouth, a burst of smoke flitting the air before he speaks.

“Ladies. Gentlemen.” His eyes flit to me for a beat. “‘Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied. And vice sometime by action dignified.’”

Tom and Audrey pound the table with their fists in approval. Jane snaps her fingers.

I assume Eliot recited Shakespeare. I have zero clue what the verse means.

Zero clue which play it’s from. All I know is that too many eyes have sunk into me.

Whatever Eliot just said referred to me.

Or related to me? How the fuck should I know?

I’m in remedial Literature while they’re all earning their PhDs.

They’re all more well-read than I am, even Beckett who honestly does not read much, and I’ve tried not to let it bother me. Because I could always search the quotes later, but I choose not to. I don’t need to be exactly like them. I don’t want to be.

Even if it dawns on me that I share more in common at this moment with my brother-in-law who’s not a Cobalt by blood but considered a Cobalt by marriage. Thatcher has a furrowed, slightly stern expression, just as confused as I am.

Eliot plops back in his seat, and I return my goblet to the table. It’s anyone’s guess who’s going next. Opening remarks can be used to update each other on our lives, voice an opinion about a current event, or incite emotion. I’ve seen it all.

Tom stands on his chair just as Eliot had done, and I watch as Eliot tosses him the scepter. This time, it hits a dangling crystal on the chandelier. The crystal snaps off and plops with a clink into Charlie’s wine.